The Gary Post-Tribune reports today:
CROWN POINT — Months after developer Robert Stiglich was fined for damaging wetlands near his Stillwater subdivision, state and federal officials are investigating whether a similar infraction has occurred at the same development.Note: The April order referred to in the story above does not appear to be available via the IDEM database of enforcement actions and orders. Posted by Marcia Oddi at June 18, 2004 01:15 PMThe state Department of Environmental Management and the Army Corps of Engineers are looking into reports that soil from the Stillwater development was dumped in a half-acre area of mature wetland in the neighboring Pine Hill subdivision, owned by Hawk Development Co.
Hawk’s project manager, Todd Kleven, said he arrived at the site Tuesday morning to discover the parcel, in a low-lying part of Pine Hill between the subdivisions, had been filled in.
Kleven said he told crews working in the Stillwater project that they had no right to dump the dirt in the protected area. * * *
[Michael Back, an attorney for Stiglich] said it was not unusual for construction crews to accidentally fill in wetlands in areas like Crown Point, where the rolling land creates small pockets of environmentally-protected terrain. But looking at the spot that had been filled in, Kleven wondered how workers could have mistaken it for anything but wetland.In April, IDEM ordered Stiglich to purchase wetlands from the Lake Erie Land Bank in Lake Station, because he had damaged small parcels of wetlands near Stillwater without a permit, according to Andrew Pelloso, chief of IDEM’s Wetlands Section.
The land bank maintains a large wetlands area, and IDEM allows developers to buy portions of it to make up for damage caused to wetlands elsewhere, Pelloso said.